Tarki

Tarki stands on the slopes of Tarki-tau near the western Caspian shore. Between the mountains of Dagestan and the sea, routes connected the northern Caucasus with Derbent and lands farther south. The settlement became a seat of the Kumyk shamkhals, whose authority connected it with the surrounding lowlands and mountain communities.

Tarki was the capital of the shamkhalate by at least the sixteenth century. Its position exposed it to the ambitions of neighbouring powers: in 1668 Cossacks under Stepan Razin sacked the town, and the shamkhals later faced Russian expeditions along the Caspian coast. After the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813, Tarki came under Russian control. The history of the town reflects both its role as a regional seat of power and the contested passage between the Caucasus and the sea.